How To Overwinter Chilli Peppers, Overwintering Chillies, Vegetable Gardening

How To Overwinter Chilli Peppers, Overwintering Chillies, Vegetable Gardening

I love growing Chilli peppers as they are so easy and reliable, and keep cropping until late Autumn. The other big plus with Chilli Pepper plants is that, unlike most vegetable plants, the plants make a woody stem and so can be treated much like a tender perennial.
With that said, all you need to do to keep the plants alive until the following year is to keep them in a bright and frost free environment. A windowsill, polytunnel, glasshouse, conservatory or similar is ideal. My plants just get put by the patio doors.

Tools required:
Clean and sharp secateurs

For overwintering the plants indoors I don’t want to have to keep the big bulky plants so I cut the plants back.
By cutting back the plants and keeping them protected over winter it means you can get ahead of normal cropping schedules as you will already have established plants available.

Using a pair of clean and sharp secateurs, or a pair of scissors look to cut back the Chilli plants to about 25-30 cm in height, although you can cut them back by more if space is restricted.
When cutting back the plants make the cuts just above an outward facing leaf joint or bud. A leaf joint/leaf bud is literally where a leaf will be sprouting from. By cutting to an outward facing bud it ensures that as the plant grows again the new shoots will grow outwards and away from the centre of the plant, so making sure the centre of the plant does not become congested which could increase the incidence of pest and disease issues.
Once we get to spring I will look to pot up the Chilli Pepper plants and give them a good feed to encourage as much growth and cropping as possible for an earlier harvest.

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